


Black as Blood

by carolion



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Character Death, M/M, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-09
Updated: 2012-12-09
Packaged: 2017-11-20 16:53:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/587620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carolion/pseuds/carolion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>David can't give up or stop moving. He needs to get Archie back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black as Blood

David clutches the glass vial in his bare hand, teeth gritted against the freezing cold as snow swirls around him in a howling gale. His fingers are tinged slightly blue, but he can't let go of the vial to put his gloves back on, and he can't stop moving either or he'll freeze to death. He just has to find some shelter so he can get warm and restring the glass vial so it can go back around his neck, close to his chest under all his clothes, where it belongs. Where it's safe. 

"Don't worry Archie, we'll make it," he mumbles to himself. His lips are numb, and his voice is raspy, carried off by the wind. Just saying his name out loud makes him fight the storm a little harder though, and he steadily hikes up the mountain and towards an dark, gaping mouth of a cave, nearly delirious with relief. 

He throws himself inside and shoves his hands inside of his parka, shivering and huddling in on himself. He just needs to get some warmth into his extremities before they fall off, his core temperature is fine, he can spare a little time before he has to build a fire or something. He's not going to die like this. Not before --

Once the feeling returns to his fingers, he slowly withdraws his hands from his clothes and uncurls his fist to reveal the glass vial. He winces at the feeling of a thousand icy needles pricking his skin, but ignores the pain as he watches the thick, nearly black liquid inside the vial slosh sluggishly within. Relief blooms in his chest, and he lifts the vial to his lips and kisses it clumsily, closing his eyes gratefully. 

It had been hell getting Archie to give up the blood - he couldn't let it freeze, not now.

\--

When David had brought up the subject, Archie had thrown a fit. David had never seen him object so violently to something in all the time he'd known him, and to be honest it had taken him a little by surprise. 

"No way!" Archie had said, shaking his head vehemently. "Blood magic is too dangerous Cook! It's wrong, and -- and unnatural -- and evil." 

"Only in the wrong hands," David had cajoled, grasping Archie's flailing hands in his owns and soothing him by rubbing his thumbs along Archie's skin. "And if I had only a few drops of your blood with me, I could always find you, no matter where you were in the world." He lifted Archie's hands to his mouth and kissed them both chastely, clutching his fingers tight. 

Archie's mouth had trembled. "It's not right Cook," he had protested. 

David had won the argument, in the end. Having just a few ounces of Archie's blood meant that he could always find him, always heal him, and always be tied to him. They'd promised each other they would only perform the blood-letting ceremony once, and that the vial was to be kept tied around their necks, hanging close to their hearts beneath their clothes, so it'd always be near them and less likely to fall into the wrong hands.

David had never been so happy to have won an argument in his life. 

\--

He nearly went insane when he was forced to watch Archie's execution. The guards had held him with his hands and feet bound and made him kneel the way Archie was kneeling, only they kept David's head up and his eyes wide open, whereas Archie had his head bowed and eyes closed. Not in fear though. His head was bowed in prayer. David could see his lips moving and knew that the younger mage was praying to whatever God lived in the clouds. He wondered if God would help him, or if Archie was just wasting words in vain. 

The sound David had made when the bullet tore through Archie's heart was inhuman. 

\--

David watches the blood as it sloshes back and forth in the vial, nearly mesmerized by it's slow path from one end to the other, watching the smear of black-red it leaves on glass. He can't ever let it freeze. He doesn't know what that will do to it, if it will still work if it's frozen and then thawed again. He needs to keep it as close to it's natural state as possible, though in the circumstances that he's in, it's no easy task. 

Archie wouldn't approve, David knows. He never approved of blood magic in the first place, and had even tried to refuse the few drops of blood it took to heal him after he'd been hit with a poisoned arrow. Archie did not approve of any black magic, and no magic was blacker than the art of necromancy. 

"Dead things should stay dead," he would say with a frown, his brows knit in concern. David can see his face so perfectly that it feels like a hallucination, like if he were to reach out, he could touch him. He knows better though. 

"I can't let _you_ stay dead though," he whispers, bowing his head. All he has to do is find the Shadow King and give him Archie's blood, and then he'll be able to hold his love again, hear his laugh, see his eyes and stroke his hair. 

That's why he can't ever stop. That's why he has to keep going. He can't live while Archie is dead, and if he can't bring Archie back to life -- he'll die trying.


End file.
